Apple’s iPhone has been the subject of the media and tech forums for the past two or so years it has been in the market. Maybe because of the fact that no other phone looks as sexy as it does (sort of like the Motorola Razr craze of 2007-2008). In any case, iPhone team has to always be on top of its game as BlackBerry is about to release the BlackBerry Storm, the company’s answer to the iPhone. HP also has its own version of an iPhone terminator with a touch screen line of the iPaq Smart Phone. iPhone and friends better watch out and fork out more tools for the iPhone or else.

So how is the iPhone doing these days? Are there latest iPhone updates that will keep the loyal customers loyal? Here are some of the latest iPhone updates that will either hit or miss the iPhone consumer’s pallet.

First, H2O audio has released a very unique item for divers, swimmers and basically water crazy consumers of the iPhone. The people behind H2O made waterproof headphones and arm bands for the iPhone that can withstand water pressure up until 3.6 meters. It even has a touch screen window so you can operate your iPhone to the fullest while under water.

Second, you can now include fring to your iPhone. This third party app will let you to instant message your contacts in YM, Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Twitter, ICQ among others while on the go. Talk about being connected 24/7. No need to say “BRB” to your pals.

Third, you can now make the iPhone a versatile pocket personal computer with a huge number of useful applications available in the App Store. These applications are the latest iPhone updates that may sell very well to those who use the iPhone beyond mere communicating and beyond playing music.

Fourth, for those always on the go that regular iPhone cases are not working, Case-Mate made an “electrolastic” membrane protector that will enclose your iPhone to protect it from mishaps like scratches, nicks and others. All the while still making the iPhone’s screen very accessible. Perfect for the outdoorsy people.

Fifth, for the Facebook fanatics out there, a latest version of the Facebook application for iPhone was released. The sleeker looking updated application now looks more like the computer version. This third party app has a better notification system, better search tool, a mini-feed and it also has a photo tagging option among other features.

Sixth, another application that will make iPhone users wild is the iBluSky. This application allows one to cut and paste or copy and paste items, topics, pictures on your iPhone! Makes emailing a whole lot faster.

Seventh, for work buffs, a great iPhone application now available is the Spreadsheet. The name of the application may not be too exciting but it finally allows one to create spreadsheets of the iPhone and then open it to your PC at home in MS Excel. It still has its bugs according to some users but it’s a start.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The iPhone, specifically the team behind iPhone (hello Steve Jobs), has given us many reasons to ditch this mobile phone slash multimedia tool slash somewhat pocket PC platform. It’s finicky like a high maintenance girl friend and at the same time it has the temper of a boorish boy friend.

At the top of the reasons list is the fact that it is a very restrictive phone and unless you lock it, you remain with AT&T. What if you are a Sprint or a Verizon user? No sir, you have to switch to Cingular turned AT&T or else you can not use the iPhone. Second, it has a number of bugs you have to deal with that you get tied up with the customer service line for an hour or two just trying to get the darned thing fixed.

That is why the Apple iPhone team keeps on releasing latest iPhone updates to keep us consumers hold on to the phone after our initial attraction to this one of a kind mobile sweet body has faded. As they say, beauty fades but hardware and software capacity is endless. So what are the latest iPhone updates nowadays?

Aside from the fact that the Apple iTunes store has released more third party applications that we can definitely use, some of the latest iPhone updates are as follows.

One, the team has finally fixed the call dropping and the phone crashing problem that seem to keep on happening to a handset that has a lot of third party applications installed. It was beginning to get annoying but thank goodness that has been fixed.

Two, the issue of the scary “Blue Screen” appearing when the iPhone (or iPod or iTouch) is plugged to a PC that has a Windows Vista operating system was also remedied. No longer will your heart thump for a couple of nerve wracking seconds when the “Blue Screen” pops up.

Three, iPhone’s text messaging speed and contacts list loading speed has also improved. No more waiting time for you while you message your husband to pick up the dry cleaning and you will no longer wait feverishly while you search for that hot chick’s number hoping that you were not too drunk to forget to ask her digits.

Four, we all know how whacked the accuracy of the 3G signal of this mobile phone. Bar code says that the signal is at the maximum level but you still are having a hard time with the 3G. Well worry no more as the display is now more accurate. It would have been better if the Apple people would address the strength of the signal for us to have a better 3G reception but let them work on that for their next update.

Five, like Motorola’s mobile phones, the Apple iPhone will now also have repeat alerts for messages received.

All these latest iPhone updates plus a whole lot more on security patches and mobile phone security are all available on the iPhone 2.1 updated software.

Popularity: 3% [?]

How would you like to have a phone that delivers more than what is expected of a phone. It would really be nice if you have a gadget that contains everything you need. Apple understood this need and delivered what the market wants. They were able to come up with a phone that can be used to browse the internet, take photos, record videos and play music.
Aside from making important calls, the user can also surf for information whenever he needs too. If he wants to unwind, he can just listen to the music and relax for a while. The device is also very handy. With all its functions, a person does not need to bring other gadgets when he travels and stay out of town for a while.
Apple’s iPhones are out to set a new standard for all smart phones available today. iPhone offers a lot of benefits. It is a device that has everything a person needs to manage his busy schedule. Let’s take a look at some of the other advantages that you can enjoy if you have an iPhone.
It is an edgy, state of the art mobile phone. With advance features to go with it, iPhone are definitely ahead of its time. It made controls over the phone easier. Through the multi-touch technology, the user can easily key in texts, scroll through the stored images and explore the net. It uses the OS X. Having this operating system allows the user to access, top notch software.
The device will in itself look for a Wi-Fi network so that the user can access the internet whenever, wherever. iPhone have advance Safari features. With this, the user can zoom through the page with a touch on the screen. He can even pick web clips on his home display to have an easy access to his favorite sites through its rich HTML capability. The iPhone can easily get emails from most of the leading mail services too.
Its Bluetooth connectivity is very convenient to connect to devices that are Bluetooth enabled such as headsets. You don’t have to attach anything to it in order to listen to the music by yourself.
It also has an accelerometer. This lets you view the image on your phone according to the view you desire. If you rotate the phone, it will automatically change the display on the screen to landscape wide or portrait tall.
It also has a power saving feature. iPhone has proximity sensors. This sensor turns off the display on the screen each time you lift your phone and place it near your ear to answer or make a phone call. This saves power and prevents any unnecessary touches on the screen until you put it down. It also has a sensor that lets the phone automatically adjust to the brightness in the environment. This allows the user to save more energy for longer use of the device.
This phone allows a person to multitask. One can read through a page while continuing to download a file. It will also automatically adjust its volume as the user receives a call and adjust it back up when the call has ended. Truly the iPhone have challenged the limitations of most mobile phones.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The iPhone has been pitted against the Blackberry since its release. Which phone really is the better phone? In the beginning, productivity and security were major concerns with the iPhone.
Productivity
For starters, the Blackberry’s qwerty keyboard makes it extremely user-friendly. The iPhone touch screen is more attractive but it can be quite a chore to maneuver. When you want to send an e-mail or text message, the keyboard on the iPhone appears only on landscape view. This poses typing problems. If you have a deadline to meet the touch screen might slow you down. With the Blackberry you can type with just your thumb and if you do this regularly enough, you can actually type without looking at the screen. Since you don’t have to worry about damaging the screen, keying in work is much faster.
The IPhone has a spell check feature that corrects misspelled words automatically. But if you don’t want words to be corrected, like names, it can be tedious to keep re-typing everything that the phone has corrected. The Blackberry on the other hand has an auto text feature where you get to create your own shorthand. You can program in words or names that you frequently use and whenever you type say, the first two letters of a word plus another key, the device automatically spells out the whole word.
Push email. The Blackberry instantly alerts you of incoming mail but with the IPhone, you have to go to the inbox to check for new messages.
Security
Reportedly, hackers could easily tap into the IPhone. You could, for example install software even if it isn’t an approved program or isn’t supported by IPhone applications.
Enter IPhone SDK and its enterprise features. The SDK or software developer kit allows other developers to create programs that can run in the IPhone. This is a great update to the IPhone because it eliminates guesswork as to all the possible applications that people might want to have on the IPhone in the future.
And what of its enterprise features? With these new features, users can now have push email, calendar, contacts and global address lists, addressing one of the major complaints consumers have about the IPhone. Another significant feature included is enforced security policies. With Microsoft’s ActiveSync and Cisco IPsec VPN, the IPhone has a more stable security system in terms of high level security measures such as encryption, remote wipe, certificates, identities and password policies.
Some analysts say these new additions have leveled the playing field, others disagree saying the IPhone still has a long way to go. The Blackberry’s security measures aren’t something to scoff at. Some analysts say that even with improved IPhone security, the Blackberry still has more policies in place that enable companies, say, to remotely disable digital cameras or set limitations as to which applications can access GPS. Using an intermediary to transmit data to users also works to the Blackberry’s advantage. The IPhone routes it data direct to users. Apple contends this is a more secure system.
So who shall dominate the smartphone market? The battle rages on and only time will tell which company will emerge the victor. GP
7. The Definitive Guide to Apple iPhone
When Apple released the iPhone it was evident it was to be the century’s uber-gadget. It seemed to contain all the features that you could possibly want in one lifetime. For those wanting to buy an IPhone, here’s what’s in store for you.
Touch Screen Interface. The IPhone boasts of a widescreen display with multi-touch user interface. This multitouch technology allows you to maneuver the device in different ways. For zoom in function you can pinch your fingers apart on a section of the screen. For zooming out you pinch your fingers together. You can magnify sections of a message by pressing down on that area and holding it. The magnifier stays on as long as you keep your finger pressed down.
The IPhone also has an accelerometer that automatically adjusts the screen to landscape view if you tip it over to its side, say when you are surfing the Net or playing music. During calls, the sensor automatically shuts off the screen and adjusts display brightness according to available ambient light.
Visual Voicemail. This is another genius feature of the IPhone. Visual voicemail allows you to listen to any of your voicemail messages in any order. This enables you to listen to the most important message without having to go through every single one that comes before that.
Safari Browser. The iPhone’s browser is another much-touted feature allowing you to view web pages in their entirety instead of being shown limited text and graphics. Surfing the net is easy and fun as you can execute functions with just a swipe, tap or flick of a finger! The phone has both Google and Yahoo search. If you want to save your favorite web pages, the IPhone lets you bookmark simply by tapping the bookmark and adding it to home screen options.
Text Messaging and Email. The IPhone is truly a multi-tasking tool. The IPhone lets you access email while reading a webpage, you can also download web pages in mid-call. You can also send text messages from your IPhone to multiple recipients.
IPod. The IPhone is also an IPod boasting of excellent video and audio quality. The most notable feature of the iPhone’s iPod is that it enables you to flip through songs through the album artwork. This is a first for an iPod. You can browse for songs in Cover Flow mode and this is a remarkable feature because it gives you the feeling similar to physically digging through your music collection. Another plus is that when you board an airplane, the call transmitter automatically switches off but the music player keeps functioning.
Watching video remains a pleasurable experience because of the phone’s widescreen. On this iPod you can go through movies by chapter and the device has an option for displaying subtitles.
Camera. The IPhone has a 2 megapixel camera that can be accessed by tapping the camera icon on the home screen. An interesting feature is that the phone imitates the actions of a camera shutter as you take pictures.
Other note-worthy features of the IPhone are:
Integrated YouTube player.
Widgets
Bluetooth and wireless connectivity

Popularity: 2% [?]

The first generation of peer-to-peer file sharing died leaving room for the second generations to come forward and take its place in the world of P2P file sharing networks. Originally, the first generation of P2P networks focused on a centralized server that maintained the data to be down load, while the second generation made room for a decentralized structure in which the files would be maintained on the clients personal computers then transferred others through a redundant virtual network.

The first such attempt to decentralize the network was done by the Gnutella right after the fall of Napster. Gnutella was developed by Justin Frankel who was part of the Nullsoft development company. The fist working model ended up being an almost complete failure as the entire network would bottle neck due to the onslaught of ex-Napster users who came looking for a place to share their files.

The main reason why Gnutella, at first, bottle necked was due to the simple fact that Gnutella made all the nodes equal. Soon FastTrack would create a new development that allowed certain nodes to be more equal than some of the other nodes on the network.

Gnutella picked up this development and implemented it into their own system which then created the Gnutella network that we all know of today. It was this development by FastTrack that allowed for the true decentralized peer to peer networks. In the network, some nodes become super nodes and have higher priority over others. They do this because they then become basically indexing nodes that maintain a track of the less than equal nodes attached to them.

Later, the second generation peer to peer networks also added the Dynamic Hash Tables to allow for file transfers without the need of the tracker file even further decentralizing the file sharing networks.

With over 10.3 million users, not including the bit torrent protocol, world wide, the FastTrack developed method of file sharing in the second generation has grown a quite respectable reputation.

The bit torrent and various other file sharing networks are not going anywhere, nor are they just going to disappear. As long as there is a need to share virtually any type of file with a complete stranger on the other side of the world, the file sharing networks are only going to grow in size.

The file sharing and especially the bit torrent network is quite literally the largest community in the world with hundreds of million members in virtually every county world-wide. How do you join the world’s largest community? You can simply download any bit torrent client software for free. Sit back and let the program bring the file you want directly to you. The faster your connection and the more you share, the faster you can get your files. It basically that simple!

Popularity: 27% [?]